During its Unpacked event last night, Samsung revealed that it has baked a nifty new software tweak into the firmware that will ship on board both its recently-announced flagship smartphones of 2016, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. This feature is called Whitepages and automatically filters any spam or fraudulent calls, thus making it easier than ever to avoid cold callers.

At MWC 2016, Lenovo unveiled a trio of budget-friendly Android-powered tablets — the TAB3 7, TAB3 8 and TAB3 10. The first two slates are aimed at regular consumers looking to pick up a functional 7- or 8-inch device without breaking the bank, while the latter was constructed for use in the business sector.

It’s Sunday, the time of the week when Talk Android brings you a report on some of the very best applications we’ve been using over the course of the past seven days. Today we’re focusing our attention a unique stock keyboard replacement, a fun photo manipulation tool, a must-have companion for all Amazon Prime Now subscribers and last, but not least, a fun survival game.

Leon Rosenzwaig, Director of Product Management at HTC, has just announced that the Taiwanese company is in the midst of rolling out the Marshmallow update to all unlocked variants of the One A9 located in Canada. In addition to bringing the latest build of Android to the handset, the upgrade also bundles February’s security patch, which nips the critical bug that permitted devices to be remotely accessed by a simple text message in the bud.

According to a recent report, Facebook is currently in the final stages of making the relevant changes to implement advertisements in its Messenger application for Android and iOS. Once introduced, the ads will reach around 800-million regular users. However, only one ad block will be displayed per day, which means that we thankfully won’t be bombarded with ads whenever we send or receive a message.

Earlier this month, NVIDIA started pushing out the Marshmallow update for both the SHIELD Tablet and SHIELD Tablet K1 in Asia, Europe, North America and America, but, annoyingly, just a couple of days into the rollout, it was forced to pull the firmware as many users were reporting Wi-Fi connectivity issues with their devices following a successful installation.

Thankfully, it looks like all the bugs have now been squashed and the build has at last been deemed stable enough for public release as the American manufacturer has today started redistributing the long-awaited Android 6.0.1 upgrade for its two gaming slates in the aforementioned regions.

Skype is in the midst of rolling out an update for its official Android client via the Play Store. This upgrade brings group video calling to your handset, in addition to a plethora of much-needed bug fixes, stability improvements and speed optimizations which are all aimed at improving the reliability of placing calls whilst using a cellular connection.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei has been making good on its promise to distribute Google’s monthly security updates for its flagship smartphones, and today has started rolling out February’s patches for the Mate 8. This upgrade’s objective is to fix a multitude of “critical bugs” present in the open-source operating system, which, if not dealt with, could have permitted devices to be remotely accessed by a simple text message. It also addresses users concerns regarding privilege escalation as it plasters over any previous holes exposing the resources that had the facility to brick a handset if tampered with.

Earlier today, NVIDIA released preview builds of Khronos’ new graphics API, Vulkan, for the SHIELD Tablet, SHIELD Tablet K1 and SHIELD Android TV. This firmware is primarily aimed at developers who are looking to optimize their applications for use with the new programming interface.

Earlier today, an unannounced Samsung-branded smartphone passed through the United States of America’s official certification authority, the FCC. Information included in the filing suggests that we could be looking a revamped model of the South Korean company’s best-selling mid-range smartphone, the Galaxy J7.

Indian manufacturer Ringing Bells has just unveiled the world’s cheapest 4G-enabled smartphone, the Freedom 251. The budget-friendly device has been developed so that everyone in India can embrace the power of the Internet, and for a mere Rs. 251 ($4) it’s something I’m sure that the majority will be able to afford.

Ashton Kutcher has been a Product Engineer for Lenovo for over two-years and during that time he’s helped develop the Yoga family of Android-powered tablets. Now, however, he’s focusing his attention on smartphones. Earlier today, Kutcher published a post on Motorola’s official blog in which he explained that the company has been at the forefront of emerging handheld technology for the past 3o-years, and that he will be spending most of 2016 in the Moto Labs, listening to consumer feedback, to aid future handset enhancement.

In an effort to improve the security of its upcoming smartphones, HTC has just announced that all of its 2016 handsets will ship with popular password management application Keeper Security pre-loaded. This functionality will enable owners to generate and store secure login information without having to install any additional apps from the Play Store.

ARCHOS has today unveiled three new Android-powered tablets which it plans to showcase during its press event at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona next week. All three slates are set to run the latest build of Marshmallow when they hit the shelves in May.

Josh Levenson

Josh is an avid Android enthusiast who writes news, reviews and the occasional how-to articles. He lives in the UK and is fascinated by anything technical. He enjoys stripping and rebuilding vintage Macs and is a keen amateur photographer. Currently, his smartphone of choice is the HTC One (M8), but he has a sneaky suspicion that’s going to change when the Galaxy Note 4 finally hits the shelves.